Newport Gun Girls and Girl Guides' film goes international

Rangers from the Beechwood Girl Guiding Community

08/03/2018

An animated film about the Newport Gun Girls will be showing at international film festivals around the world this year.

Girl Guides in South Wales created the film, which explores the role of female factory workers during the Second World War. The film was made as part of a project which received £68,000 from the National Lottery in 2015.

Brownies, Rainbows, Guides and Rangers from the Beechwood Girl Guiding Community learned about what life was like for women workers based at Newport’s Royal Ordnance Factory 11 (ROF11) during the Second World War.

They learnt about their everyday experiences and achievements, as well as the wider implication of their role as women working in what was considered at the time very much a ‘man’s role’.

“We still can’t believe our film is being shown around the world, and the Gun Girls probably wouldn’t believe it either!”Meghan Burridge, aged 15

The young people also found out what it was like to live in wartime Wales, exploring popular music, film and art from the era.

Gun Girls’ story brought to life

As well as museum visits and attending workshops, over 100 young women and girls worked with historians and experts to create a bilingual animated film documenting the lives of the women engineers at ROF11.

Their film has already helped teach other young people studying history at school about the Gun Girls.

It will now also screen at international film festivals in Dublin and County Kerry, Ireland; Athens, Greece; Mississippi, America; and Vienna, Austria, ensuring that the achievements of Newport’s women factory workers will be heard outside Wales too.